5 FEBRUARY 1954

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The Spectator

UNHOLY DEADLOCK

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EADLOCK has now gripped the Anglo-Egyptian negotiations on the Canal Zone since the opening of the Sudan elections. It is true that deadlock has persisted, intermittently, in...

A Shock for Lancashire

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The Anglo-Japanese trade agreement seemed to surprise Lancashire despite the cotton industry's suspicion that the terms might be unfavourable to it. Certain quotas of cotton and...

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Signor PietrO Nenni, the wily old Socialist leader, clearly stated

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the left-wing tactics: " You Christian Democrats now have no choice but to decide whether to be a party. of reaction or of progress. If you decide on progress, you will always...

The real battle in Malaya has always been " for

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the hearts and minds of the people," to quote General Templer. The- - enemy has had three main assets: first, the active Communists above and below ground; second, the...

Second Thoughts on Buganda ?

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If the Buganda deputation now in London has so far made no visible progress towards persuading the Government to change its mind and restore the Kabaka, it has answered some...

A Lesson from Yugoslavia

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Mr. Milovan Djilas got a severe rap on the knuckles for his temerity in letting his thoughts run freely and publicly in the direction of the liberal practices of social...

Rifles from Belgium

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It is impossible to quarrel with the Government's original decision to choose the Belgian FN, firing a .300 cartridge, rather than the first British EM2, an admirable—possibly,...

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Cotton seems to be the most political of all commodities.

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Steel is a rival, but cotton troubles Parliament much more frequently. This week Mr. Butler and Mr. Maudling have , had to defend the new Anglo-Japanese financial agreement...

Not an Isolated Incident

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While he cooled his heels for an hour in the draughts of Victoria Station, M. Rend Cassin may perhaps have cheered h imself by remembering the ambition of the late Ernest Bevin,...

The 'House as a whole is glad to have Mr.

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Butler back. No other Minister is so well informed about so many aspects of Government as he. The Government's decision to change the business announced for this week so that...

AT WESTMINSTER

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T HE House of Commons was turned into a firing range on Monday and Tuesday. The Opposition practised with the new British .280 rifle, and the Government com- peted with the...

This has been a heavy week for the Home Office.

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On Tuesday afternoon Lord Lloyd, who is one of the Under- Secretaries in that department, told Lord Chorley that an apology had been sent to M. Rene Cassin, vice-president of...

The Tate—A Mystery Remains

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Any situation which brings Sir Alfred Munnings and Mr. Douglas Cooper together on the same side of the fence may be considered ironical. It should be remembered when the rumpus...

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HOW LONG CAN GERMANY WAIT?

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I N this journal it has always been recognised and asserted that the unification of Germany and the re-emergence of a German armed force are -simply a matter of time. Anyone can...

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The Bog-Trotter Dusk was falling when I once more passed

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the ruined castle, crossed the footbridge and splashed back to the car, From a sky the colour of old armour snow-flakes continued their leisurely but purposeful descent. Small...

Infanticide Anybody can coin a new word; the difficulty is

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to get it into circulation. I seem to have had more luck than I deserve with " cow-pocked," an epithet which, with rather more help than usual from the printer, I applied a...

Pot-Shot at a Proconsul Vindictive seems to me the only

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epithet with which to describe the attack made on General Sir Gerald Templer by Mr. Victor Purcell in this month's Twentieth Century. Mr. Purcell, a former Principal Adviser on...

What did they look like ?

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The first two volumes of the officla.1 history of the last war have been conspicuously well done, but I think it a pity that more imagination is not used in the choice of...

For all I know, Mr. Purcell may be correct in

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this contention; but I wish he had found it possible to write more objectively of a man whom he clearly very much dislikes. F rom a colourful article in Time Magazine (not, I...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

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HE Gatling's jammed and the Colonel's dead I " wrote Kipling; and though he, with his schoolboy relish for technical terminology, might have been just as happy Writing " The...

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A Psychiatrist's Choice

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The Spectator recently invited a number of scientists to answer the question: If you were beginning your career now what branch of science or field of research would you choose...

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I T was a new road across a desert; not as

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deserts go, large, but still a great expanse of emptiness. Yet the road wound like an English country lane. " Why," I asked the driver, " build a crooked road across a straight...

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CONTEMPORARY ARTS

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ART Ginner. (Tate Gallery.) THE history of English painting is a sort of switchback, with headlong swoops into troughs of what Professor Waterhouse has called 'inspissated...

MUSIC THE Italian String Quartet played a rather disappointing programme

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at the Festival Hall on Tuesday. London has been greatly impressed recently by Boccherini's quintets, played by another excellent Italian ensemble; but the quartet with which...

CINEMA I HAVE not read Joan Henry's book on life

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in a women's prison, but I am told it is excellent, and 1 cannot help feeling that although Miss Henry has collaborated in its translation from paper to screen she must be...

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's con- cert at the Festival Hall

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on January 27th was conducted by Richard Arnell, two of whose works were in the programme. One of these, the ballet suite Punch and the Child, has already been recorded ; but...

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Country Life

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WII awoke to snow. Its glare was on the ceiling as soon as there was light, but at first I did not think that snow had been falling during the night. I was puzzled at the...

GRAMOPHONE RECORDS

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(INirmis before catalogue markings indicate the following recording companies: C, Columbia; Cap, Capitol; D, Decca; N, Nixa; OL, Oiseau-Lyre; T, Telefunken; V, Vox. A star...

Old B. gave up keeping 'hens a ycar'ago and our

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friends up the road put their stock into the cooking pot one by one not so long after. It didn't pay to keep birds on a small scale, both said. A breakfast egg was worth only so...

A Journey

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A journey of about a hundred miles took us across one county, through a second and to the far side of a third, and as we went I began to appreciate the change of scene. We are...

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SIR,—We should not have dared to write to you, but

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we see that you have published a letter from Little Mr. Tomk ins about Dr. Edith Sitwell, so perhaps we can ask a ques- tion. Is all Dr. Sitwell's poetry, as well as the bit in...

SIR,—May I express my gratitude to Sir Compton Mackenzie for

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his wise comments on the present position of teachers, and par- ticularly for his emphasis on the unity of the profession. On the other hand I can only deplore the...

SIR,—Miss Edith Sitwell's gentle rebuke to your reviewer in a

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recent issue does prompt the reflection that devotion to God, if not of a weak and parasitic literary growth, is and should be expressed in the language of one's own time. Hence...

SIR,—I have not read Dr. Edith Sitwell's new slim :

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volume of verse, nor any others of hers for that matter. But her obvious fury at any criticism, even by a competent critic, whom she belittles by implication and by personal...

Letters to the Editor

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CRITIC BETWEEN THE LINES SIR,—II is obvious from two phrases in his article " Critic Between the Lines," that, like other of our feathered friends, Mr. Anthony Hartley has spent...

Sns,—Heaven knows that Dr. Edith Sitwell is in no need

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of defenders, but I should like to say a word in favour of her method of retort to criticism. Crude hard hitting has always been a healthy prerogative of English literary...

TEACHERS' SALARIES

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SIR,—Your correspondents, who wonder (or complain) at the grammar school masters' demand for higher pay than their colleagues in other schools miss the point. No one would deny...

SIR, —If the anlysis of ' Perplexed' were correct, there would

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be a brisk supply of good candidates for teaching; in fact employers are complaining of shortages and deterioration of quality. He states correctly that teachers average about...

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maintain their families in recent years. Many of the laity

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have been anxious about the situation, as witness the numerous 'letters in the national newspapers on the subject. The bishops have been doing their best to put the whole system...

SIR,--Elizabeth Jennings in her article " Poetry in Childhood" raises

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some interesting contro- versy. Very young children, nurtured on nursery rhymes, accept and indeed often prefer, a story told in verse. The roots of a latent understanding and...

THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN

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SIR, — Miss Virginia Graham writes (Janu- ary 22nd) of the extravagance of gestures in The Battleship Potemkin which seems a weak- ness to the modern viewer. There may be much...

GOOD FORM LEONARD wictc; 16a Parts Road, Oxford

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THE BIG TRUTH SIR,---May I thank you and congratulate you

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on one of your articles on behalf of Anglo- American friendship and solidarity which was reprinted_ on the editorial page of The (.7hristian Science Monitor. dated January 15th,...

CIVIL DEFENCE Since 1945, after 5 years of national sacri-

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fice, we have all lived on the brink of varying types of crises. Again and again have the heads of governments appealed to us to make economies; to forego many harmless...

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BANKER'S HAZARD

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1-to( &It C. BENNE] r .5 F o rest Drive, Sale, Ch e ...hi re

WELLER ON CAMBERWELL

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SIR,-7-Mr. H. J. Bridges need no longer feel distressed at Mr. Weller's apparent disparage- ment of Camberwell men. Mr. Weller senior was the driver of a long-distance stage...

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JOHN GLOACI

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3 The Mall, East Sheen, S.W.14 [Many letters have been received on this burning topic. An apology is due to our readers for Watson's faulty memory. He was, of course, confusing...

Curses seem somehow more satisfying to the unregenerate soul of

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man than blessings. I am thinking particularly of J. M. Synge's 'The Curse,' which ends up: "Lord, this judgement quickly bring And Int your servant, J. M. Synge." Competitor's...

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No, 205 Report by Edward Blishen

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At the thirtieth direct translation of "La Belle Dane" into Augustan English I turned pale. Surely the joke lay in showing our poets straining at themes uncongenial or unlikely:...

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I ID LSI 11 -1 1'

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Compton Mackenzie ITERALLYS ' are becoming as rare as the Large Tortoiseshell butterfly because, owing to the publicity they have received for some years past, the most...

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A Censor for the Tiny Tots

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By V. SACKVILLE-WEST We have softened, since then, in our treatment of our children. We try to ' understand ' them; but I sometimes wonder if this understanding works better in...

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SPORTING ASPECT

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For Victory By J. P. W. MALLALIEU 0 NE of the great thrills of sport is to see a team pull some match out of the fire in the closing seconds. Years ago Leicester led the...

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BOOKS OF THE WEEK

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The Strachey Family By RICHARD HUGHES "STRACHEY.—An old family, small in numbers but of a marked and persistent type. Among its characteristics are an active interest in public...

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Pre-Cartesians

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African Worlds. Edited by Daryll Fordo. (O.U.P. 30s.) THE peoples of Africa south of the Sahara, as Professor Daryll Forde points out in his admirable introduction, lack " a...

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Conspicuous Dia ma

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The French Revolution. By Gaetano Salvemini. (Cape. 18s,) IN all European history no epoch has so captured the imaginations of the English as that of the French Revolution ; and...

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New Novels

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The Mather Story is an exceptionally well-written novel. This is not to say that it has a distinguished style, which is a relief considering the way ' style ' has of boiling...

Saul among the Dervishes

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Surely, they said, a wonder has taken the man That with torn raiment and frenzied mien He pirouettes like a top in the city street, Not even capable of walking straight As a boy...

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J. P. T. BURY and J. C. Barry have edited

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the diary of Bertie Greatheed, a Warwickshire squire who visited Paris after the- Treaty of Amiens. The real purpose of the visit was to allow his son, already an exhibitor in...

The Navy as an Instrument of Policy, 1558-1727. By Admiral

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Sir Herbert Richmond. Edited by E. A. Hughes. (C.U.P. 60s.) THE theme of this posthumous work by Admiral Richmond is familiar enough : it is that the Navy is the supreme...

NEW and good books about insects are as rare as

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hens' teeth. This is not particularly new in content or good in the sense that the author has managed to arrange some old ideas in a new way, but it has got almost everything...

The Memoirs of .Field-Marshal Kesselring. (William Kimber. 25s.) The Memoirs

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of .Field-Marshal Kesselring. (William Kimber. 25s.) KESSELIUNG commanded the German air fleet which attacked England in 1940 and supported Army Group Centre in Russia in ....

OTHER RECENT BOOKS

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The Story of England : Makers of the Realm. By Arthur Bryant. (Collins. 16s.) THIS trilogy of the greatness of England (for Dr. Bryant, like the Attic tragedians, writes in...

Good Food from Abroad. By Salome £.3 10s.) Italian Cooking.

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By Robin Howe. (Andre Deutsch. 10s. 6d.) Good Food from Abroad is a small, practical, reliable book of fairly cheap and attractive dishes with an East European flavour pre-...

English Art, 1100-1216. By T. S. R. Boase. (Oxford. Clarendon

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Press. 37s. 6d.) English Art, 1100-1216. By T. S. R. Boase. (Oxford. Clarendon Press. 37s. 6d.) OF the three volumes in The Oxford History of English Art published so far this,...

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C. T.

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AN interesting share is N. CORAH AND SONS, manufacturers of

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knitted underwear, outer- wear and footwear under the trade name " St. Margaret." Marks and Spencer have an interest, but not a controlling one, in the capital and are the...

RUBBER shares are not recommended as an investment but as

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a reader has asked for my opinion I will make a few comments. The price of the commodity is at the moment hardening but is still at the very low level of Is. 41d. against is....

Company Notes

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By CUSTOS THE sensation of the week in the stock markets was TOOTALS. About a fortnight • ago the shafts were 85s. but there must have been some leakage of the good news, for...

FINANCE AND INVESTMENT By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT THE rise in Anglo-Iranian

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oil shares to over £92 and the fall in the new Lancashire Steel shares to 2s. discount makes it more difficult for a business man to understand the de- nationalisation technique...

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1111310,3141i-111111112001313 VI 13 13 r n /3 I7 11:1131=117 illt71111031:112r11131

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El 17 n at El nricananca ilignons n 111 u L11117113 ii13171.11 013dA KI U U 171 Annan M 13OW/V VirlIZIE1 Fl 13 A I3 El.nor:merl e r=inc3r77131117174 tAtir.013 u 13 13 ri G3...

THE " SPECTATOR " CROSSWORD No. 768

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IA Book token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution opened after noon on Tuesday week February 16th, addressed Crossword, and bearing NUMBER...